What Happens if "Avengers: Doomsday" Isn’t a Mega-Hit?

We’re less than two months away from the release of Avengers: Doomsday and, without question, the film is the biggest theatrical release left in 2026. It seems to go without saying that the movie is going to make a lot of money. But I do have one question. What if it doesn’t make enough money?

It seems bizarre to suggest that Avengers: Doomsday won’t be a massive success, but I’m not sure that anybody could deny that the MCU is in a very different place today than it was in 2018 and 2019 when Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame were released. Back then, it really felt like the Marvel Cinematic Universe could do no wrong. Everybody was excited to see what these massive team-up movies would do. And I’m just not getting the sense that everybody cares nearly as much this time around.

Between the first Avengers and Endgame, no MCU movie made less than $500 million at the global box office. Since Endgame, seven movies have failed to cross that threshold. Since Endgame, the only MCU movies to break $1 billion at the global box office have been Spider-Man films and Deadpool & Wolverine. None of the MCU’s homegrown heroes have been able to do it. 

There's little argument that the Multiverse Saga hasn't been messy. The situation with actor Jonathan Majors that forced the MCU to pivot its story has resulted in a series of films that certainly haven't worked as well as the Infinity Saga did. Will an incredible cast, including fan-favorite characters, be enough to get everybody back in the theater?

That’s not to say people aren’t going to be curious enough to go see it. Even people who aren’t frothing at the mouth for Doomsday will probably go see the film. What are you going to do, not go see the movie everybody else will be talking about? The question is, will that hype last? People seeing a blockbuster multiple times is usually the difference between a movie just making “a lot” of money and “swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck” money.

It might seem like a semantic argument to suggest that Avengers: Doomsday might only be popular and won’t be world-changingly popular, and that such a thing could in any way be a problem, but there’s a lot of reason to pay attention, as it wouldn’t be the first time that a massive franchise found itself in some trouble because it didn’t make as many billions as necessary.

Avatar: Fire and Ash made almost $1.5 billion; the franchise has grossed nearly $7 billion, and yet we find ourselves in a place where the future of the Avatar franchise is in question because the most recent film, one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies ever, didn’t make enough. The issue isn’t simply one of how much a movie makes; it’s also a question of how much a movie costs. Avatar is an incredibly expensive franchise, and so its movies need to make insane levels of cash in order to be deemed successful by the studio.

Avengers: Doomsday is going to find itself in something of a similar situation. Not only is it going to have a pretty hefty digital effects bill, but the movie’s absolutely massive cast is going to need to get paid, and most of these names don’t come cheap. While we likely will never know what the budget of Doomsday is, some of the low-end estimates put it at $400 million, and that's before marketing and distribution costs. This is an expensive movie, which means it will need to make a lot to be profitable.

Massive success for Avengers: Doomsday likely means business as usual. But if the movie doesn’t blow away the box office, could we see a similar Avatar-like stall? Avengers: Secret Wars is set to release in theaters a year after Doomsday, but the movie hasn’t even begun filming yet. Considering how long post-production alone on a digital effects-heavy blockbuster usually takes, it seems all but guaranteed the movie will be delayed regardless of what happens with Doomsday. Is it possible that Secret Wars is holding off to see how Doomsday does before moving forward?

If Doomsday doesn’t make the money that it needs to, could we potentially see changes to the MCU going forward? Could planned movies be eliminated? Maybe we’ll see a new direction taken, and whatever the plans are for Secret Wars from a story perspective, it could become something else. 

I’m certainly not suggesting the MCU is going to fold up shop if Avengers: Doomsday doesn’t become the highest-grossing movie ever, but studio executives are all but guaranteed to take the wrong lesson from a film’s success or failure, so the results of the movie underperforming, if it happens, don’t have to make any sense. 

Maybe Avengers: Doomsday will make $2 billion at the global box office. Maybe it will end up being so good that fans can't stay away. As a fan myself, I certainly hope that's the case. After I watch the movie, however, I'll be watching the box office, as it will have its own story to tell. It may change the MCU more than Doctor Doom ever could.